Reflections
by Jessahme Wren
Summary: The pilot and 1x04. Both Liz and Red ruminate on each other. Chapter 2 (Liz's perspective): Meeting the Stewmaker changed everything.
1. Pushing Through the Dark

**Disclaimer: Not mine; I own nothing.**

**A/N: I would like to do a second chapter from Lizzie's perspective. Let me know in comments if that's a good idea or if this should be a oneshot. Thanks!**

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Raymond Reddington had always been fond of self reflection. Self reflection wrought realizations about one's weaknesses, and he was not a man to entertain weaknesses of any kind. When identified, he sought them out and dispatched them as handily as how he did his work. He did so judiciously. He had always been judicious about his work. It was not his task to examine the moral significance of one job or the other. He was simply a liaison. His work was a service and one that he provided well.

He sat in the near dark, in an overstuffed chair in an anonymous luxury suite in Georgetown and watched the sun rise. He had long ceased staying in the same place twice, despite having an affinity for one hotel over the other in select cities. Such was his nomadic lifestyle, one born of necessity and one he did not mind. He used to keep track of his various abodes, even patterning them, but Red knew that even the randomized patterns of personal habit could be eventually detected by a skilled observer.

_Like Elizabeth Keen._

The rapid evolution of his thoughts caused him to wince inwardly. Lizzie had a way of slipping into his thoughts unbidden as of late, and that put him ill at ease. His business and very survival were dependent upon his ability to control his thoughts, to orchestrate his actions, emotions, and movements perfectly, yet finally meeting her had..._complicated_ things. Yes, he realized matter-of-factly, things had become quite complicated.

It was not a complication that was readily fixed, and Raymond Reddington had a penchant for fixing things.

He swirled his drink, almost invisible in the early light, and watched the day unroll its tendrils onto the streets and avenues and early morning commuters visible from his lofty perch. There was a fog that clung low to the horizon, darkening the ground, yet he was high enough in his penthouse to almost see above it. It was an exhilarating feeling, being able to see both sides, to know the known and the unknown and be satisfied in that.

There was too much about Elizabeth Keen that was unknown. Not things as pitifully banal as her past or present (Red had practically watched her grow up, for Heaven's sake), but other more gossamer things, things Red was convinced he had total control over because that had always been the case. More than he knew anyone, he knew himself. The veneer that Raymond Reddington presented to the world was carefully crafted. The immaculate suit and fedora, the polished control. His charm, ease, and fluidity of movement often portrayed an accessibility that was non-existent. Red kept the moat between him and everyone else wide, deep, and heavily guarded.

Except when it came to Lizzie. He sighed, still perplexed by being caught off guard and least of all by a woman. Red knew, though, that _this_ woman was storming the walls of his defenses. Her effect on him became painfully palpable the first time they had shared the same air. He remembered it well. The moment she strode over to sit across from him, all of his rules, all of those carefully laid plans of interaction completely dissolved in the blinding hot light of her presence. It took him aback, his reaction, like smothering on pure oxygen. The hallmarks of his condition hinted at far more than mere physical attraction. To think it was only _that_ threatening his carefully cultured facade was an insult. Of course her attractiveness was obvious and it was true that he was not immune, yet physical attraction was nothing beyond the control of a man who is an expert in the very art. She was indeed beautiful, he ruminated, remarkably so, but for so many other reasons than the obvious and superficial. Raymond had never held a concept of beauty, but if he had, he was sure Lizzie would exceed all the criteria of such a standard. No, Elizabeth Keen had more of a profound affect on him than a paltry siren or nymph. Raymond had known beautiful women. Elizabeth Keen made him feel slightly out of control.

He first recognized this on the day of their meeting, recalling the candor with which he had spoken to her. That development, that spontaneous eruption of pure honest truth he had not anticipated, but he had no regrets. Raymond was not a man given to regret. Indeed she is very special, he thought, and she deserved to know it (_deserves to be told it every day, and to be shown it by someone capable of doing so)_, he finished inwardly. He did not presume to be that man, but he knew he could be. He finished his drink and sat the glass down heavily.

The sun had risen high enough now to threaten the thick blanket of fog over the city. He watched as the sun fought through the weak areas to illuminate the dark below. Red fingered the cuff of his dress shirt and realized he had not been to bed. Suddenly he thought of Lizzie getting up for work, of her going through her morning routine. He imagined her sipping a cup of coffee in the kitchen and struggling with her hair in the bathroom vanity. Red could have had her surveilled of course, but he much preferred these little daydreams; they were more personal and more civilized than the fumbling methods of a high tech Peeping Tom.

He pulled himself from his reverie. The morning was growing and there was business to be done. He straightened yesterday's clothes and contemplated a shower. Lizzie was not affecting the end game, he told himself. The plan was still in play and all was well.

He stood, taking a last look at the swelling sunrise and smoothed the wrinkles of his suit vest. The fog was nearly gone now; the sun glittered off the buildings and dew-stained cars. A beautiful day was afoot.

That's what Elizabeth Keen is doing, he suddenly realized, pushing her way through the dark.

And he was letting her have her way.


	2. Fighting Monsters

**A/N: Thank you everyone for the wonderful feedback on this my first Blacklist fic. Here is the other half to make a whole. Please let me know what you think. **

"Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you."

― Friedrich Nietzsche

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Liz splashed cool water onto her face. Once, twice, again. Her hand was trembling.

She hated herself for that.

Behind her, all around her, she could hear the great steel cage lumbering into place. The mechanical whir of the maximum security cube seemed to shudder and roar in the large echoing space before finally locking into place. The resultant bang both startled and reassured her.

He couldn't touch her.

But he had. He had touched her mind with his soft, probing questions, questions he seemed to know the answers to. He had touched her heart by stirring the memories there, memories long forgotten or replaced. Raymond Reddington had touched her like no other criminal (no, person) she had ever met. He didn't just know of her, she realized darkly, but he _knew _her. Reddington knew things about her that others did not. Most terrifying of all, he knew things about her that even she didn't know.

And that's why he was valuable.

The cool porcelain of the bathroom sink kept the nausea at bay as she held both sides of it to steady herself. Her wrist glanced against the gleaming white, shocking the sensitive skin of her scar. _Her scar_, she thought bleakly. He seemed to know about that too. She worried it absently. Her face in the mirror betrayed her fear, red-rimmed eyes timid and wild. _He knew about her scar!_ Liz only knew what she had been told, what she recalled through manufactured memories. She closed her eyes, steeling herself. She would use him, she concluded. As dangerous as he was, perhaps Raymond Reddington could fill in the gaps of her memory, if she could just keep him out of her head.

-0-0-0-

Liz sat on the edge of the cast iron tub, staring blankly at the bathroom door. Tom fussed protectively, testing the temperature of the water and laying out the necessary instruments.

_Not instruments_, Liz corrected herself. She tightened her arms around her, trying to purge the memory. All she could think of was the Stewmaker. How, just a few hours ago, she'd sat paralyzed and watched as the Stewmaker prepared her final bath.

_The Stewmaker_. What a bleak perversion of something usually comforting. She would never eat stew again.

Distantly, she registered Tom. He kissed her on the head, murmuring. She didn't quite understand him. He showed her a brochure, some getaway. He was touching her, speaking to her as if from another room; both his touch and voice were alien. He was gone then, and she had barely registered his presence.

_Red._

Red was a murderer. Red was her savior.

She stood, letting the silk robe fall to the tile. She eased into the water. It was hot, a little too hot, but she let the water enfold her up to her neck. Maybe the heat would burn away the memories that, like the Stewmaker's drugs, had permeated her...skin and vein and bone. She thought of the Stewmaker boiling in his own roux.

_Red._

She searched for words to describe what she'd felt when she saw Red's face materialize in that cabin. A kaleidoscope of emotions stirred something very primal insider her, like gulping air after being held under water. That was it, she realized. Red had given her air.

She smoothed her arm with her other hand, relishing in the warmth there. The skin sloughed off with the contact, blistering and peeling to reveal sinew and bone. She gasped, shutting her eyes tight. When she opened them again, the image was gone. She blew out a few sharp, quick breaths to steady her nerves.

_You're a monster._ That's what she'd said to him in the ambulance, right after he'd saved her life.

After he'd saved her from the Stewmaker. Hell's cauldron had popped and spat behind him as he stood regarding her. She would never forget the way he'd looked at her then. His gaze was soft, expectant. Tinged with wonder. No one had ever looked at her like that. Those were not the eyes of a monster.

And yet, he terrified her. _"It is he who burns; it is he who slaughters." _She closed her eyes against the memory. The little bedtime story he'd told the Stewmaker was more than a story, she realized. It was his story. And just when she thought it had reached its conclusion...

_You're no better than him._

But was that true? Liz was not sorry the Stewmaker was dead; that she admitted. So, what did that make her?

Liz stepped out of the bath and into her robe quickly. Goose flesh formed along her arms and legs, but she welcomed the sensation. She moved into the bedroom to sit on the edge of the bed. She found her phone where it lay on the nightstand. Liz weighed it in her hands a moment, considering dialing the number she now had memorized. She didn't. She replaced it with a heavy clatter before lying back onto the pillow.

She closed her eyes, exhaustion overcoming her. _I'll see him tomorrow_, she thought sleepily. She smiled.

Liz would dream of monsters that night; she would dream of them many nights after.

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End file.
